Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 12

935 HEY THAT'S NO WAY TO SAY GOODBYE

HEY THAT'S NO WAY TO SAY GOODBYE

Didn't she know? Didn't she know?! Hadn't someone told her? Wasn't it obvious?

It's really hard to get your thoughts in order when you're choking on raisin toast and your mother's condemnation. I coughed and swigged some coffee.

She was smiling. That pasted-on smile I had seen in Kansas or wherever the fuck we were that time.

I cleared my throat enough to speak. Here goes. "There's no girl. I'm in a committed relationship with the most important person in my life. He's a... singer." I was going to say he's a man, but you know, the word man was somehow too narrow for Ziggy.

Her smile wavered ever so slightly, that little bit of lip curl that screamed disapproval to me, as she asked the absolute last thing I expected her to: "Is he good?"

A weird sort of relief swept through me as I realized the blow I had been expecting didn't fall. I honestly don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that. "Yes," I said. "The best."

She gave a little sniff and a nod. "Well, okay, then."

Was that approval? It was really fucking hard to tell. It was...at least not terrible, anyway. I felt dizzy.

"When do I get to meet him?" she chirped.

"Oh, um, any m-minute now?" I looked behind me to make sure he wasn't standing in the doorway smirking at me. Because that was the sort of thing Ziggy would do. But he wasn't there. "He's upstairs."

"Well, why didn't you say so? He must be famished, the poor thing. Did you leave him up there like a dog?"

Oh my god, normally that turn of a conversation would have driven me up a wall but this time I said, "You're right. I'm sure he's starving. He just wanted to, um, give us some space, I think." I got up hurriedly and almost knocked my chair over. "I'll go get him."

In my hurry back through the living room I almost missed him sitting there. He was in an arm chair that his brown shirt almost blended into. He had his legs crossed and a book thumbed open in his hand. An empty granola bar wrapper sat on the coffee table in front of him. He looked up and gave me one of those oh-I-just-noticed-you looks that was obviously fake, but I played along, gesturing for him to come with me into the kitchen but not act like he'd listened to the entire thing. Which of course he had.

Claire meanwhile had gotten up and put another piece of raisin toast into the toaster oven and was humming to herself while she wiped the crumbs off the counter.

Ziggy took over immediately, offering his hand. "Missus...? Oh, Claire, isn't it? May I call you Claire? I'm Ziggy."

"Claire is fine," she said, taking his hand and then trying to pull it away as he kissed her knuckles. "Are you always so forward, Mister... Ziggy?"

"Yes. He is," I said from the edge of the room, my heels still touching the carpet. "It's why he's a front man."

"I see. Well–"

I don't know what she was going to say then, because the front door opened and Remo came in behind me. I felt the blast of cold air and then he shut the door firmly.

I tried to use hand gestures and mouthing to ask him: Why didn't you tell me she was here? But he just looked at me quizzically as Claire sailed past me to take his coat.

Remo gave her a chaste peck on the cheek, but his eyes were on me the whole time. "Call Carynne," he said.

"What? Why?"